


STEMH - Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Heroism

by gokulex59



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-09 18:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3259706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gokulex59/pseuds/gokulex59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They may be heroes, but first and foremost, they are scientists. Curiosity is kind of a package deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Honey on Custody

“Funny,” a familiar voice rings in the narrow hall, causing her to raise her head immediately. “Always thought _she’d_ be the one to get behind those.” Fred sticks a thumb out and points it to the female beside him, his other hand –supposedly- serving as a paravane between the corner of his lip and Gogo’s glare.

 

Honey Lemon raises her hand, embarrassed, waving her fingers. “Hey,” she greets softly, her grin almost sheepish.

 

Gogo steps forward, and Honey sees her arm twitching, most likely as the first step of a process of getting her hand out of her jacket’s pocket, but apparently she decides against it. “You okay?” She asks, in a tone that would be nonchalant for ears that are not familiar with Gogo, but Honey analyses the concern there right away and picks it up. Gogo Tomago has never been to ask or express anything she deems unnecessary, and especially not for the sake of being ‘nice’. If she asks Honey if she’s okay, she means what the phrase itself implies.

 

Honey always understands.

 

She shrugs. “Not too terrible. Kind of… uncomfortable here… um…” She glances at the toiled attached on the left wall, way too clear in sight, and shudders.

 

“No worries, Fredzilla here has it all covered.” Fred points at himself, smiling proudly.

 

“Fred… zilla?” Honey raises an eyebrow, hesitating on the last syllable.

 

“Don’t talk to him.” Gogo rolls her eyes. “Seriously, why are you behind the bars? What could _you_ possibly have done?”

 

“I needed some fluoxetine so I got a bottle of Prozac out of my mom’s old medicines… There was an accident when I was driving home so there was a traffic control, the police found it in my dash and it’s obviously not for me so, well, got into custody for suspicion for drugs.” Honey explained, playing with the hem of her skirt.

 

Gogo’s lips bend slightly. It’s a smile; it’s the smallest, but it’s there, until she shakes her head. “Couldn’t you find some at labs? Or just produce it in a small amount?”

 

“Nope. It’s illegal for the university to provide it freely for students, for obvious, you know, drug and dangerous addictive medicine related purposes. Not illegal to make experiments on campus grounds with it, though, if control is ensured, so I didn’t think it would cause trouble or anything…?” Her voice goes slightly higher in the last syllable, making it sound like a question when it’s not.

 

Gogo breathes air out of her nose, slightly loud, but doesn’t say anything. She has done much worse for the sake of curiosity. They all have, they are scientists – well, most of them, but Fred makes up for what he lacks in scientific knowledge with enthusiasm.

 

That’s the moment Wasabi walks in, right behind the expressionless police officer with silver keys dangling off his fingers. “Hello, Honey,” he greets, voice calm and smile on his face, which can only mean that things are fine. “We’ve talked to your Or-Chem professor, she agreed to write a petition to affirm it’s a confirmed and controlled project you’re working on. Hiro went with Baymax to fetch it as soon as possible.”

 

“Ya gotta wait for your friend to come back, though,” the officer warns, unlocking the lock to Honey’s cell. “But you can wait in the lobby.”

 

Honey smiles at the man, as bright as ever, thanking him as sincerely as she always does when she says it. She’s quick on her feet, right beside Gogo and Fred. “Thank you so, so, so much.” Her thanks is directed at her best friends, and she pulls Fred in a quick hug that she pulls away in a second. “And I’ll pay you back, Freddie, okay, you don’t have to pay every little thing for us just because you’re, well…” After a second of consideration, she decides she lacks a less blunt word. “…rich.”

 

“Nah, don’t mention it.” Fred shrugs. “Seriously, don’t. Parents away most of the time, equals too much money to handle. Ninety bucks isn’t a problem for friends-slash-superhero-teammates.”

 

“Thanks anyway.” Honey smiles, before walking to the front desk and taking her purse back, looking down to check her belongings. Greeting the lady on the shift, she kindly asks when she can have her car back.

 

“In two days,” is the plain but equally polite-toned reply. “As a part of your penalty.”

 

“I understand, thank you.” She nods, flashing another smile, before turning back to join her friends on the benches in the waiting area, until Hiro comes back. Gogo is standing up, one hand on her hip and the other hanging freely on her right, eyes focused on something inside her mind. Wasabi and Fred are sitting, or more like Wasabi is sitting and Fred seems comfortable occupying two people’s worth of space even though he is one third of the guy beside him when it comes to volume. The blond is claiming something about ‘magical portals’ and Wasabi is rubbing his temple with unsuccessful efforts to explain why ‘portals to alternative universes are not possible’ and ‘DC universe is not an alternate universe’.

 

Honey doesn’t interfere, instead, she intertwines her fingers with Gogo’s, causing the Korean to snap out of whatever inspiration she was having and get the eyes focus on her. “Seems that I’m stuck with you and your bike,” Honey Lemon chimes. “Have you got a spare helmet?”

 

Gogo’s only audible response is to pop her gum, but her fingers squeeze Honey’s, and that’s enough of an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is unedited, and I am sorry for that, I agree with the idea that a writer must always go back and edit, but my priority was to finish.
> 
> I haven't been able to complete anything I've had ideas for and started since May 2014. As an attempt to get rid of this writer's block, I decided to take little steps and write drabbles first. I challenged myself to not be done with this collection until there are 20 of these drabbles, and because I can't stop thinking of HoneyGogo, it's going to be them I'm going to write about. I will probably not only write about Gogo and Honey, but it's going to be mostly them.
> 
> I may even add Fredsabi.
> 
> You can prompt me stuff, in fact, I encourage you to. All for me to get rid of this writer's block and get better at writing.
> 
> Criticisms and corrections are perfectly okay.


	2. Easy Come Easy Core

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all grades are based on skills and intelligence in a certain area. As long as they are also students, genius heroes will have dull, boring evenings filled with schoolwork as well as others.

Hiro _hates_ core courses.

 

“That’s it.” He slams his laptop shut, half a second before banging his head on it as well. Any electronic damage he could have caused wouldn’t be anything he could not fix, and his three hours’ worth of an essay starter sentence wasn’t anything to fret over. “University was a mistake. I quit. I’m better off as a garage inventor. Goodbye SFIT. Not nice knowing you. It was awful.”

 

“Woah, little dude,” Fred laughs, flipping a page of the newest issue of _Harley Quinn._ “You are so not ready to hear about being a literature major.”

 

“But that’s _your_ choice,” Hiro retorts. “ _My_ choice was to study on mechatronics and artificial intelligence. Not to analyze the social reasons behind the San Fransokyo Uprising.”

 

“You could talk about the government’s attempts at dictatorship.” Cass chimes beside Hiro, taking now empty bowl of nachos to wash. “For starters, there were high school teenagers taken to court and found guilty of treason for not standing up when the governor walked in.”

 

“Thanks, Aunt Cass.” Hiro smiles up to her, and keeps the corner of his lip up until Cass decides she’s done with hair ruffling and gets back down to café. “I mean, I do understand the reason behind presentation assignments, I am an engineer, I _will_ need to present my ideas when I feel like publishing them. And I understand discussions too, I don’t dislike thinking about different topics time to time and people should have an idea about some stuff. But _essays?_ ” Sighing, he opens his laptop back up, making a note of Aunt Cass’s prompt and the bit of information she gave. “And don’t get me started on the ECON100. Who makes an economy class obligatory for engineering students _in a technical institute_? There isn’t even an economy department!”

 

“I could give you my ECON notes when you take it. I had taken it in my freshman year.” Wasabi offers, before taking a bite of the raspberry filled donut on his plate. “I’ve taken most of my cores in my freshman year. I have only Humanities core left to give.”

 

“Freshman year? Why do you keep your ECON notes from two years ago?” Honey wonders out loud, temporarily raising her head from her own essay. She is taking her Social Sciences core elective this term too, but unlike Hiro, she has Psychology 100, and Hiro regrets that he picked Civil Society and Democracy instead. In his defense, he’d been lied to, this was supposed to be an easy lecture with scheduled quizzes and only one final assignment, not weekly essays and presentations. It’s to his cruel luck that the lecturer has decided to change her ways the term Hiro decided to get over with his Social Sciences credit.

 

“More importantly, why did you hate yourself enough to take most of it in one year?” Hiro’s brain would _explode_ if it was chained down with essays for five out of their allowed six classes to take in one term. He is already struggling with his tendency to just screw the whole course and fail for the sake of working on any project he comes up with anytime he wants, and he takes maximum one core course in one term.

 

Wasabi shrugs. “I wanted to be done and over with trivial assignments by the time I was working with quarks. I changed my mind and turned to lasers on the way, but it was a good strategy nevertheless.”

 

“I would rather not deal with them _at all._ ” Hiro grumbles. “My thing is _robots_ and _electronics,_ not politics and… I don’t know, essay formats!”

 

“My school has core classes too, but like, one per department, aside from obligatory History in third year.” Fred shakes his head, face crunched up in exaggerated agony. “Finite Mathematics? More like, _Finishing_ Mathematics. Get it? As in, it _finishes_ , as in, deals the final blow.”

 

“Isn’t that tenth grade math?” Wasabi raises an eyebrow.

 

“But you _like_ science, Freddie.” Honey interjects. “You’ve taken all the basic science courses offered in your school, and no one was forcing you to.”

 

“And I do _not_ like _this,_ and I am _forced_ into _this._ ” Hiro points at his screen with his two index fingers.

 

“Ah, but I am _terrible_ at math.” Fred waves a hand around. “There is a reason I could only take basic sciences. The further I went, the more math has betrayed me.” Whimpering, he adds, “You don’t need math, science! Spread your wings and fly!”

 

No one tries to explain Fred how mathematics is the blood and the brain, and for the sake of that metaphor, also wings to science. Instead, Hiro opens his browser to look up events from ten years ago, considering having a discussion with Aunt Cass for more and on-point information. From the corner of his eye, he sees Fred to switch from _Harley Quinn_ to _The Communist Manifesto_ , which must be his reading assignment if the salient diversity between two pieces of literature is anything to go by. Honey goes back to her writing and Wasabi is busy with calculations for customizability of laser induced plasma.

 

With all of them, with exception of Gogo who had to skip because of a seminar, focusing back on their dull college student works much easier than they would in their alone time, convinces Hiro that a weekly homework session together indeed is a good and effective idea.

 

Effective doesn’t make it any less boring, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate core courses.
> 
> Dull chapter, I know. But it naturally came up when I was thinking about how much I hate core courses, especially as a physics major. I don't know how many universities in how many countries have obligatory core courses, but mine does, and as much as I know all students in my country has to take a certain history lecture about national history. San Fransokyo is a fictional city with mixed cultures, so you'd expect it to have mixed laws too. And I can absolutely expect a top-rank university as SFIT having obligatory core courses, and if it's not that way in USA, SF is not supposedly USA now, is it.


	3. Electromagnetic Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gogo's research is screwed up. Hopefully better for science to grow, but definitely worse for her nerves and scientist urges.

Gogo is not an idiot.

 

And that’s exactly what she grumbles to her phone’s microphone, dropping her palette of purple eye shadow on the table in frustration. “Don’t make me come over _there_. It’s a bike, not a goddamn hospital machine. If you need to look up the difference between ‘suspension’ and ‘radiation’, I’m going to hang up and you better do just that, but a quick summary – suspension is waves going back and forth stably, and radiation is when they go crazy, and absolutely not fucking stable.”

 

With a frown on her face, she listens to the voice on the other side as patiently as her nerves allow. She’s almost successful, until the TA finally decides to tell what he should have in the first place-

 

“They _what?!_ ” Gogo almost screams, her phone would be crushed into pieces if she were the type to let anger make her lose control.

 

“You will be able to continue to work on it as soon as the professor confirms that the risk is gone and you’ll be supervised. And hey, you’ll have your own high security lab with ultra-dielectric installment to work in, too. What’s so bad-?”

 

Gogo doesn’t give in to the urge to hang up immediately, but she doesn’t try to explain how a high security lab with ultra-dielectric installment can as well as go down in fucking flames if its existence means she’ll have to share her project with her professor, either. “I’ll be there in five,” she states before ending the call and bolting out of the door.

 

She doesn’t even pause to take off her headband.

 

(…)

 

“Heyyy, headband looks good on you- but why does only your left eye have eye shadow on?”

 

Gogo glances at her girlfriend for only a second, before she’s back to her scrap paper. “Had to run out before I could finish the make-up,” she grumbles, frowning at her handwriting.

 

She hears Honey slip into the chair on her left, but still doesn’t look up. “You didn’t show up in the café this morning, and didn’t text that you wouldn’t come either. We were worried about you.” A tanned arm moves into her vision, hesitantly grabbing her forearm as an attempt of reassurance. “What happened?”

 

Sighing, Gogo drags her arm out of Honey’s hold, but makes up for it by taking her hand instead. “Particles went unstable, electromagnetic suspension became electromagnetic radiation, I can’t find the link or the reason for the transition between the two different behaviors of particles, no one can, my research is suspended until EMS is safely obtained back again, and will be supervised even then.” Furiously, she holds up her paper full of calculations for electrodynamics, and Honey reaches out to grab it, scanning the equations for herself. “But wait, I am not even _done._ There is a new researched planned to take start next month to study on EMS further to figure out how could, you know, electromagnetic waves holding a _very damn stable_ bike can go crazy, and I _want_ to take a part in it but I am not fucking allowed because _I am a fucking engineer!_ ”

 

“Gogo…” Putting the paper aside, Honey props her elbow on the table and raises their hands, until their intertwined hands are right between them, before squeezing Gogo’s fingers in assurance. “I know you want to work on it yourself, and I understand, I’d feel the same about my research too. But it makes sense that an undergrad’s project would be put under supervision after such a risky discovery, and it this were not SFIT, it would even be _cancelled_.”

 

“But it’s _my_ project, Honey! If it’s going to be supervised, fine, I can keep on going and maybe start a new project if I come up with it. But EMS going EMR… it’s strange, so it’s huge. I want to figure it out _myself_. It’s my project that brought it up, also it’s my project what is affected, and I want to look into it. _Myself._ ”

 

“I know, I understand, I really do,” Honey tries to assure her girlfriend, rubbing the Korean’s fingers for the purpose. “But it’s not like you can just install an electromagnetism lab in your garage. And you _are_ still an undergrad engineer and it’s a brand new phenomenon to look into, maybe if you were a grad student, they could justify taking you in by your achievements.”

 

Gogo isn’t one to calm down by illogical statements, but right now, facts don’t help either. “Sorry, Honey.” She gets up, the action unlinking their hands. “I kinda need to be alone right now. I’ll… call you later, okay?”

 

“Okay…” Honey mumbles, smiling a sad smile, and as if Gogo didn’t feel bad enough upon her research being taken away, now she feels even worse upon being a shitty girlfriend.

 

“Sorry,” she repeats weakly, unable to say or better, do more for that her mind is still clouded from the whole stress and pessimism of the day.

 

Honey tries to smile brighter, failing to do so. It’s like a sucker punch, so Gogo decides to turn around and leave before she deals more damage.

 

(…)

 

“But- _how?_ ”

 

“Why?” Hiro is as shocked as Wasabi, and when she found out, Gogo herself and whole staff of physics and engineering departments.

 

“I don’t know. Nobody does. That’s what makes it new and huge.” Gogo deadpans, ending the sentence with a pop of her gum. She still has only one eyelid painted purple and she hasn’t even spared a thought about the headband, her mind primarily focused on brainstorming for any possible reason for suspension to turn into radiation.

 

“How is that even _possible?_ ” Hiro shakes his head, pressing his palm on his forehead and blinking rapidly. It could have looked like a sign of stress to anyone who are not familiar with Hiro’s rarest expressions, but it’s only his reaction when ambushed with an unexpected problem and he’s looking for an angle to start thinking of a strategy of solution. Then again, this could be categorized as stress in a way, if that way is any way related to human biology.

 

“Dunno. Have an electromagnetism lab to observe and look for how?” Gogo is sarcastic and very irritated, but she’s been irritated since the first phone call she got in the morning so that is not news. She has used a whole, previously unused notebook by the time she got out of the campus, and she’s currently halfway through a second. Cramps strike her hand every now and then, but she knows she won’t stop until either she figures out an entrance for an answer or she gets too tired to work the parts of her brain needed for science.

 

“How did they even notice the EMR?” Wasabi asks, scanning some of Gogo’s notes of the past two years for her project. “What was the frequency of the waves?”

 

“Violet.” Another pop of a gum, accompanied by the constant sound of pencil scraping against paper. “A girl decides to come early to the lab, and sees the disks on the bike glowing violet.”

 

“Could that be the limit for its turning into radiant?” Hiro muses out loud, his hand working on a paper as well. “Maybe it will never go from suspension state to ultraviolet, or infrared?”

 

Gogo answers anyway. “Can’t know without calculation. Can’t calculate without observation. Can’t observe without an equipped research area for electromagnetism.” Letting a breath out, she adds, “It happened in my second year of working on the bike. I can’t build the same bike and wait two years for it to go radiant again.”

 

“Ever considered one of your latest upgrades could have caused this?”

 

“Obviously. But in case you catch something I didn’t…” She slides her laptop towards Hiro. “Guess I can trust ya to see these. Don’t you dare plagiarize.”

 

“Sure, sure.” Hiro waves a hand. “More important issue here, though, your supersuit. What if the same happens with the disks?” Switching to his own laptop, he’s quick the open some of his previously saved designs concerning Gogo.

 

Pop. “The suit doesn’t heavily rely on EMS, unlike the bike.”

 

“Still, uses the same principle for features relying on EMS.” She sees Hiro opening his internet browser. “I will add upgrades to protect you from UV in case it goes that way, and from heating up in case IR strikes. Also, a signal to alert you when suspension becomes unstable.”

 

“Good thinking.” With a sudden decision, she stands up, taking her jacket from the back of her chair. “Be back in an hour maximum, call if needed. I got something to do.”

 

Her two friends are slightly surprised, but don’t comment on it, and simply nod, Hiro muttering “Sure,” before turning back to his work, Wasabi following suit.

 

Her primary concern is still her research, but Honey deserves better than a late apology, and one hour of delay wouldn’t be too much in the greater scheme of the search process.

 

Sometimes even she doesn’t know why Honey still puts up with her, but she is, selfishly enough, very glad that she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to include the scene where Honey reassures Gogo that, summarizingly put, she understands she doesn't mean it when she's rude as long as Gogo still shows signs of she tries not to, but I wanted to keep the 'little slices from their lives' theme. Also, it's four AM and I didn't trust myself not to fuck up this drabble with a less-than-well written scene.
> 
> Can EMS really go EMR by itself? As far as we are concerned, it can't, but that's what makes it so shocking to the scientist in this fiction. (Read: even the physicist who flinched when Gogo used 'electromagnetism' and 'zero resistance' in the same sentence can ignore it all when it's past 2 AM.) Then again, I always have to justify it for myself, so hear this - there is another variable that has caused this. It's just that I am not expert on the area, still a freshman here, and I can't make it up out of my ass. I doubt I would have even after/if I became one.
> 
> What I relied on was not only that all drabbles have different plot material and the reason wouldn't affect them all, was also that this kind of unlikely occurance would take at least years before explained. So, still nothing I could have offer explanation on if I wanted to keep it real scientific environment-wise.
> 
> I am not particularly confident with this drabble, but it was the last of three different drafts and I know if I drop this pace even for a day at this point, since I have only just begun, I'm back to writing block. So it had to be written, no matter how bad. After all, I'm writing to get better, right?


End file.
